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Monday, October 13, 2008

The Decline Of Western Civilization

Is this the end of the West? The end of Western supremacy and prosperity?

I don’t pretend to know much about global economics or international stock markets but with all the talk of “credit crunch”, “fluidity” and “the shoring up of financial institutions” even I can suss that things are possibly going tits up in the world.

America is panicking. We’re panicking. Europe is flapping about and looking to Gordon Brown for advice (I’m panicking).

Could this be the end of the world as we know it?

Quite possibly. There’s no money, There’s very little oil. Our military forces and those of the US are stretched tighter than Sarah Palin’s fake smile and Bruce Forsyth is plainly losing it on Strictly Come Dancing...

All in all things are looking bad.

With a couple of youngsters gambolling about the house I’m finding that I’m worrying more and more about what the future holds (or rather what it doesn’t hold). The world they may come to inherit may be far more constrained than ours ever was:

No more easy travel as oil prices have rocketed skyward. (Or rather have floated upwards like a hot air balloon as no-one can afford the fuel for rockets). People now have to work locally as no-one can afford to commute.

Food prices increased so much that we start receiving aid packages from Zimbabwe. Suddenly everybody has a vegetable plot in their back garden and those who paved over their gardens to park two extra cars and a gazebo are now desperately digging them up again in time for planting.

House prices dropped to new affordable lows but no-one can afford to hire the removal men to make a change of address worthwhile.

Everybody on crap wages that are taxed to death in order to pay for the mistakes of the suited buffoons whose irresponsibility with the nation’s money led to this recession in the first place.

Bruce Forsyth, now well over his first century, continues to fluff his jokes on Strictly Come Dancing and throw in the odd tap step to hide the fact that nobody is laughing.

I’d emigrate but there’s nowhere unaffected by this chaos to emigrate to.

18 comments:

When I was young I was terrified by 'the cold war' and imminent russian rockets.....then as time passed I accepted that I needed to just put that worry to one side and deal with all the others I was accumulating....being teenage... having parents that I loved but that would 'f--k' me up...deciding not to go to university and just furtling about for years....I now have two children (23 and 17) that (as every parent knows) I love more than life itself...and when we watch the news or discuss the papers I am so worried that they will be as scared of the world as I was....so I make light of all the current doom and gloom and adopt the 'keep calm and carry on' attitude...what else is there to do? and you know what? it works...

steve...if you look at it realistically instead of how they want you to see it...you would see that right now a great change is about to happen politically...in both our countries...great time for disaster...it's bleak at the moment but i think waiting for someone to save us is wrong...we have to do things ourselves to make it better...and btw there is oil, we just aren't tapping into it because then their wouldn't be a crisis now would there...it's all about the drama...when it is not fed it does not grow...

Yes it actually sounds rather promising when put like that - working close to home is what everyone should be doing, producing our own food locally would also be a big step forward, falling house prices are definitely good news, less air and car travel. Oh yes, it sounds great.

I don't know why anyone thought this particular civilisation (if you can call it that) would survive when few others before have done so. Time for change I reckon. And our children will be fine, Steve, (well, not that we have any together before anyone starts wondering) because they are brought up in a loving environment and well-educated (I mean the "at home" type of educated really not schooly stuff).

I'm sure you're right Daisy... I think it pays to be a bit cynical. Panic is usually only created in order to extract cash from the mob and direct it elsewhere. I'm sure this is the same here; somebody high up is bound to be benefitting from all this.

Gina, our children are great and I think it's about time we thought about which university we're going to send them to: Oxford or Cambridge? Or perhaps even Harvard? ;-) As for Brucie: he does and he is.

Rol, you are so right. Major disaster instantly averted. Suddenly everything really does seem so much better. Hey guys, chin up! We can get through this!

Chin? Did someone mention the chin? Oh God. Not again. No, it's all going wrong... the doom is coming! The doom!

You could always live out here, we're all blissfully pretending none of this stuff is going to affect us. Why, just yesterday I got a letter from my bank offering me more money on my credit card. How kind was that? In the midst of all this kerfuffle, my bank is thinking of little ol' me. Sigh.

Brucie knew all along what was on the boards, Miss Ford... And, he did warn us to play our cards right!

Seriously though, the wankers have to be bailed out because the alternative is anarchy.

Whilst Johnny Rotten might welcome a state of decline, there is already enough lawlessness on our streets without adding to it. And, that is the new age total financial poverty would herald in... stealing a loaf of bread, if you could find one, simply to survive...